


Sympathy for the Daredevil

by Ladywordsmyth



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Luke Cage (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 10:56:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16196132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladywordsmyth/pseuds/Ladywordsmyth
Summary: After the collapse of Midland circle, Elektra and Matt are presumed dead. A funeral is held for Matt. The only person who still believes he is alive is Jessica. If anyone can find Devilboy it will be her, right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Post season 1 Defenders and season 2 of Jessica Jones. Does contain spoilers. Enjoy!

Chapter 1:  
Jessica downed the last of her PI's-helper whiskey. It was no real surprise that she was going through booze and coffee like it was the end of days. In a lot of ways, it almost had been. The showdown with the Hand had left a giant crater right smack in the middle of Hell's Kitchen.

Elektra and Matt were still missing and presumed dead. The merry-band-of-misfits was disbanded and a "funeral" was attended by everyone who knew Matt's secret; he was Daredevil by night and a blind lawyer by day. A man with a heart of gold but no self-preservation, he was almost a direct opposite of her in a lot of ways.

Luke, Danny, Claire, Foggy, Karen, and Colleen had all drank in Matt's memory that night; reminiscing and telling stories about him but Jessica hadn't stayed and joined in. She drank her perfunctory drink and went back to work because unlike the rest of them, she still believed Matt was alive.

Neither Elektra nor Matt's bodies were ever found and considering the ancient tech The Hand had, she believed he could still be out there, not even knowing who he was. Long story short, Jessica had spent months searching records, money transfers, anything she could find and had yet to find a single shred of evidence to support her theory.

Jessica scrubbed a hand through her hair, frustrated with her lack of progress and lack of whiskey. Well, at least one of those problems she could fix.  
She grabbed her satchel and left her apartment to find the only bodega that was still open at 2am.

The clerk eyed her disheveled appearance in disapproval, the asshole. She threw him a few bills and snatched the bottle of Wild Turkey off the counter.

  
"What are you looking at? You're the one serving drunks at 2am, not me, asshole." She spat partingly.

The cashier huffed as she turned and left.He hadn't bothered to bag her bottle but that was fine with her, bags just slowed her down.

Jessica began walking, taking the occassional pull off her cheap ass bottle of whiskey. She walked quickly the last few blocks to her apartment as she was itching to dig back in to the case.

When she reached the door with Alias Investigations written on it, she started digging in her bag for her keys. Her ringtone started going off from inside the apartment. Shit. She couldn't find her damn keys! _Fuck it._ She just broke the lock on the door and scrambled inside. She snatched her cell off her desk but not before the call ended. Damnit. A quick blip told her she had a voicemail. Opening the whiskey bottle, Jessica pushed play on the message.

"Hi. Jessica? Jessica Jones? This is Karen Page. We met briefly back when...well, anyways. I'm calling because I found Matt. He's alive. Can you please just call me as soon as you get this." Click.

  
The bottle slipped out of her hands. Her heart was pounding. She was right; Matt was alive.

To be continued....


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our drunken heroine makes a fool of herself and is last to join the party. Enjoy.

Jessica fumbled with her phone quickly, hitting call on the voicemail.

"Come on Karen what's-her-nuts pick up the damned-"

  
"Hello?" Karen's voice interrupted her tirade.

  
"Hey. It's Jessica. Jones. I got your message. Where's Matt?"

  
"Yeah, hey, thanks for calling me back. I'm sorry for dropping the news on you like that but-"

  
"I get it. Just tell me where he is."

  
Her tolerance for phone conversations wasn't great on a normal day but after the bomb just dropped on her, her patience was at a zero.

  
"I had him brought to Matt's apartment for the time being but It's late so you don't-" Karen was quickly cut off.

  
"I'm on my way." Jessica said, hitting the END button on her phone.

  
She picked up her bag and was back out the door, smashed bottle of whiskey completely forgotten.

She ran most of the way there. Not many taxis drove around the bad areas of town this late at night. The rhythmic sound of boots to pavement couldn't quell the thoughts hamster-wheeling through her head. How had Karen been the one to find Matt? Karen may be a reporter at a newspaper but she was no private investigator.

Had Matt called Karen? _That_ was a sobering thought. Not because it was the most unlikely but because for some reason, the idea of Matt calling Karen first kinda bothered her.

Jessica had wondered about the nature of Matt's friendship with the hot blonde even before today but always assumed it was an over-and-done type of thing. Similar to Jessica's and Luke's complicated relationship. Now she wasn't so sure.

So lost in her thoughts was she that she almost ran past Matt's building. She skidded to a halt and caught her breath. Jessica's heart was pounding but that didn't stop her from leaping up the building to Matt's terrace. The sliding door resisted when she tried to open it; locked.

_Sorry, Matt._

Instead of waiting for Karen, or even Matt, to open the damned thing, she expedited the process and broke the latch sliding the door harder than she meant to. Glass shattered and she heard a female voice shriek from inside the apartment. Jessica could have felt embarassedby her lack of control, but she was too drunk and upset for that. Instead, she stomped her way into the living room.

Several people were already there but she only gave each a cusory glance. Blondie was Karen, the paunchy dude in a suit was Foggy, the asian chick was Colleen, the muscley dude was Luke, and leaning over a shape on the sofa; was the nurse, Claire.

The shape on the sofa was the only thing in the room that held her attention. She took a few careful steps forward, ignoring the voices of the others standing around her.

There he was. Matt Murdock, the devil of Hell's Kitchen, asleep or unconscious but very much alive.

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, I am posting the chapters as quickly as I can finish them so I appreciate patience, thanks! I apologize for any mistakes as they are all my own since I self-edit (no beta).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our whiskey-fueled PI learns almost nothing about how Matt came to be...not dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter has been a long time coming, but here it is!

Everything was oddly hushed, almost like Jessica's head was underwater. She knew there were people all around her, most of them talking, but the only sounds reaching her ears were the drumbeat of her heart and the shallow breathing of the Matt Murdoch-shaped thing on the sofa.

There was no doubt it was Matt, at least on the outside but he was unconscious or he definitley would have heard her rather noisy entrance to his flat. How? How was he alive? How had he gotten here? Just...HOW.

Something touched her arm. Grabbed her. Yanked her forcably back into the present. Instinctively, she pulled her arm away. Sounds game rushing back, too loud. Jessica turned her head, finding the source of her irritation. Danny.

"What, is your brain iron too?!"

  
Her look must have been feirce because he held up his hands in surrender.

"I'm sorry, Jessica. I said your name three times but you didn't respond..."

  
"Just...don't grab me, okay?"

If it was possible to feel bad for the rich boy, she would have but as it was she just stalked off to the kitchen in search of booze.  
Luke was already there, cooking.

  
"Good to see you, Jess. If you're hungry, the chilli is almost done." He smiled, warmly.

  
"Eh, I'm more interested in liquid calories at the moment."

Luke chuckled, knowingly. He reached up into a side cabinet, finding an expensive bottle of scotch. He shook his head at her like some god-awful mother hen but handed it to her as she reached for it.

  
"Thanks." Jessica could barely open the bottle fast enough before taking a healthy swig.

  
Finally, she felt steady enough to sweep her eyes around the place. A few of Matt's friends were looking at her with shocked horror, but most, like Colleen and Danny, had gone back to chattering idly, waiting for the man of the hour to finally wake up.

Jessica continued sipping the whiskey until she couldn't wait any longer and asked, "what's wrong with him?"

  
Surprisingly, Karen spoke up."I'm not sure, actually. He called me a few hours ago, rambling about his mother and a nun...or someone named Maggie. He said she was caring for him but...he didn't want to stay there. He wanted to come home. He sounded really out of it but he gave me some basic directions and so I drove out to a gas station in the bronx...at midnight. But there he was...alive....standing next to an old payphone.... So I got him in my car and called Claire and Luke for some help..." She sounded exhausted, but hopeful.

Claire finally looked up. "Hey, Jess. Matt's got a few broken ribs, several cuts and bruises but...whoever he was with was caring for him. Most of his wounds are mending or completely healed." She seemed pleased but still confused.

"Then why is he...like this?" Jessica butted in, gesturing to Matt's unconscious form.

  
Claire frowned. "Whoever took care of him...I think they gave him some kind of narcotic pain medication. Matt never takes anything like that so I think the meds knocked him out."

As Claire attempted to lift his eyelid to presumably check his pupils, a hand came up to bat hers away.  
Matt Murdoch's eyes fluttered and then opened.

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for any mistakes, they are my own because I write and edit this shit myself ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt explains the aftermath of Midland circle and our fearless heroine drinks all the scotch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have already started watching DD s3, this story will likely be very AU as it takes place before the new season began.

It felt like the whole room had taken a collective breath. Matt had opened his unseeing eyes, finally awake. No one said a word, all waiting for the one voice they hadn't heard in months. Except Jessica. She heard his voice almost every night in her dreams and then the scene would change and shatter as Midland Circle fell all over again. She sometimes even woke up screaming. She was starting to wonder if he would sound the same as he did in her dreams.

"Where...?" Matt spoke slowly, his voice scratchy with sleep.

  
Claire quickly grasped his hand and said "Welcome back, Matt. You're back at your apartment. How are you feeling?"

  
"Groggy. The meds they gave me dull my senses and make me nauseous. Can't you give me Narcan or something to flush the drugs out?"

  
"I can but it isn't a very good idea. Whatever they gave you should wear off on it's own, Matt." Claire stated, matter-of-factly. Matt frowned.

"Christ, Murdoch. The one time it's morally acceptable to use narcotics and you still can't let loose..." Jessica said as she sipped her scotch.

  
"Jessica...? Is that...You came...?" His voice still sounded unused and a little dreamy, presumably from the painkillers.

Jessica cleared her throat at that. She wasn't expecting his tone to be so familiar.

  
Luke raised an eyebrow at her but answered,  
"Yeah, Matt. All of us came when we heard the news. Claire and Jess you heard already...but Danny, Colleen, Karen and Foggy all came too. I think we all were hoping to get some answers... being that you were dead and all..."

  
"Why don't you all come sit down...this might take a bit..."

Matt sat up a little with Claire's help. Everyone moved closer, sitting on the floor as there was a serious lack of seating.

Matt started off explaining that he and Electra had been trapped under a fallen piece of rock and he had passed out. When he came to, Electra was pulling them both out from beneath the rubble. He barely remembered getting to his church and the nuns taking care of him. Electra, presumably, left right after dropping him there.

Matt mentioned a Mother Maggie had gotten a doctor to fix him up and give him the pain killers. He said he was in and out of consciousness from the pain meds and from the pain. He had several broken bones which took a long time to heal.

The pain killers made him feel like a regular blind guy (no special senses), which must have drove him crazy. When he was able to get the casts off and walk on his own, he left. Unfortunatley, the pain killers affected him badly and he got lost. He luckily found a payphone and called Karen for help. The rest was Rock-N-Roll history, Jess assumed.

When Matt finished his spiel, everyone took their turns hugging and welcoming Matt back to the land of the living. Everyone but her, that is. Jess snuck back to the kitchen and sipped Matt's expensive scotch, right from the bottle. Careful steps followed shortly after. She didn't bother looking up from the bottle, she knew who it would be.

  
"Don't tell me you found the expensive stuff...?" Matt drawled.

  
"If you have to ask, you must _really_ be blind, Murdoch."

  
"I can't decide whether to be flattered you came or concerned that you raided my liquor cabinet."

  
She snorted. "Don't flatter yourself, Devilboy, I just came to see my case through to the end."

Jessica finally looked up and he was almost exactly the way she remembered. Bruised and thin, but still handsome and earnest. If she were into that, her heart rate may have increased. But she wasn't. Obviously.

"Of course you did." Matt's sarcasm was plain as day. He didn't believe her.

  
Jessica quickly gulped the last dregs of the bottle. "Now that that's settled, I will get outta your hair. Welcome back, Murdoch."

With that, she tried to breeze past him but he snagged her arm, gently. She tensed, reflexively but he released her when she stopped moving.

  
"I'm glad you came, Jess. Thank you."

  
She shrugged, the leather of her jacket crinkling.

  
"Sure."

Other responses stuck in her throat so she just continued her exit. Jess threw a quick hand up in goodbye and promptly left the way she came.

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and I apologize for all mistakes. See you all again soon!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few months pass and Jess has managed to get herself in the hot seat again. Now she's the one needing help...

5 months later...

  
Sometimes situations had Jessica waxing poetic about the choices made that led her here. Being locked up will do that. Shockingly, being handcuffed to a table in an empty interrogation room can leave you with a lot of time to think. Think about all the stupid shit you did, got caught and then manhandled into a rectangular box waiting for a blind lawyer.

Really, it was no surprise to anyone that she found herself on the wrong end of the law. It was actually surprising it had taken her months to do so. Instead she had stayed away from Matt when he was healing because he had plenty of people helping him, he didn't need Jessica's help too.

After that, she had stayed away because he asked her to. He was caught up in a lot of trouble with Fisk again and he "didn't want her to get hurt." She called him an asshole but agreed. Now his ass was barely out of the fire and hers was back in it.

It would have been easy to try asking for Hogarth to help out but she knew HE would inevitably show up anyways. So she put on her big girl pants and asked him for help. Waiting for him was what was really making her antsy. She felt like a puppy waiting for her owner to show up and see that she had pissed in his favorite shoes. Obviously that was  _not_ reality. If anything, she was helping _him_ by giving him her business. Obviously.

Jessica sighed, trying to relax in the cuffs. It was difficult. The asshole cop who arrested her knew she had a rap sheet so he had gleefully tightened her cuffs too tight hoping she would cry or whimper or whatever. Little did he know, this pain was nothing. She had survived much worse than this.

It was funny, really, imagining the twerp watching her from the one-way mirror. She smiled at her reflection, cocky, just to piss him off. That helped her relax further into the stiff aluminum chair. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back in the chair, trying to calm her rapid heart. Birch Street, Higgins Drive, Cobalt Lane, she recited in her head.

After what felt like hours, a knock came to the door. She sat up a little straighter, opening her eyes. In walked a much healthier looking version of the Matt Murdoch she had seen just months ago. He was wearing a suit and tie with his goofy little red glasses. His trademark devil-may-care grin was only barely there as he was firmly in his "blind lawyer" costume.

This was really only one small piece of the puzzle that was Mathew Murdoch. He only pretended to be a law abiding citizen, what he really was, was so much more.  
Matt placed his briefcase on the table and folded up his cane, sliding it into a coat pocket.

"Good to see you again, Miss Jones." He said to her general direction.

 _Christ_. Alsays with the blind jokes.

  
"You aren't as funny as you think you are, Murdoch."

She kicked the chair in front of her with her boot. "Have a seat."

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, all mistakes are mine so i apologize! Hope you enjoyed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein we get a chance to see devilboy's two natures and Jess manages a compromise

Matt folded himself elegantly into the proffered chair.

  
"He deserved it," Jess offered, stubbornly. _Shit._ She sounded like a 5 year-old trying to justify pushing a kid at recess.

  
"I'm sure he did," Matt replied easily.

  
_Huh._ She hadn't expected to get such easy acceptance from Mr. Do-Gooder. Matt removed a recording device from his snazzy briefcase. Jess frowned.

  
"Don't worry, it's just the blind guy version of taking notes." Matt smiled slightly.

  
"I hate when you do that," she muttered.

  
"What?" Matt tipped his head to the side, like a friendly golden retriever.

  
"You know what I mean, Murdoch. When you...you know... _listen_."

  
"Sorry. It's habit. If it makes you feel better I pretty much just always assume you're frowning...even when I can't hear it," Matt shrugged, smiling slightly.

  
He fumbled with the recording device, pressed play, and finally asked "why don't you start from the beginning?"

Jess sat back in her chair a little.

  
"I'm not sure how much I can tell you since it involved a case I'm working for a client." She shrugged slightly.

What she didn't expect was for her shoulder motion to tug at her wrists sending unexpected pain shooting up her arms. Jess flinched slightly, a move only observable to someone who was looking hard or had spidey-senses like Matt, who likely heard her heartbeat speed up.

Matt paused the recording with a flat look on his face. He stood abruptly, knocking a fist against the door in quick succession. Officer Dickhead (as Jess was calling him), popped his head in questioningly.

  
"Were you the officer responsible for handcuffing my client?" Matt's voice was low, dangerous.

His Daredevil persona was starting to bleed through into his day-job. Officer Dickhead swallowed, guilty.

  
"Well. If you would like this case to be dismissed for use of unlawful force, I would be happy to continue the interview under these circumstances. Or...you can remove the handcuffs completely and we can both forget about your lapse in judgement." Matt intoned sharply.

 _Damn_. Mathew Murdoch truly was a force to be reckoned with. Officer Dickhead muttered some expletives, no doubt heard clearly by Matt, but removed the handcuffs completely.

  
"On your head, be it, then" Officer Dickhead shot out before slamming the door on his way out.

  
"You didn't have to do that. I can take care of myself, Murdoch." Jessica crossed her arms, ignoring her sore wrists.

  
Matt sighed, looking slightly sad.

  
"I know you can, Jess. Just because you can handle pain, doesn't mean you should. I know you have survived much worse than some jackoff with a badge...but can you  _please_ , just let me do this for you...for once?" Matt sounded exhausted so she let her anger deflate. Slightly. She nodded.

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I apologize profusely for the lapses between chapters but I hope to have this story wrapped up nice and neatly quite soon, so stay tuned! As always, thank you for your notes and I apologize for any mistakes as they are all my own.


End file.
